Products to keep you clean, calm and confident in a sandstorm

Great hair days: treat yourself to some good hair oil and soothe away the strains of travelling.
Photograph: Getty Images/iStockphoto

I’m on an adventure trip in Malawi – part holiday, part work and lots of wilderness. It’s been 10 days of sensory overload, from trekking through burning fires in forests higher than Ben Nevis to DJ-ing in a sandstorm.

I’ve been doing my all to remain clean, spruced and confident regardless of what this wildness has thrown at me. Granted, it hasn’t always worked. Yesterday I clambered on to our bus having had only three hours’ sleep and one outdoor shower, with sand layering my skin, in my ears and other places it shouldn’t be. I felt gross as we powered through a seven-hour safari drive.

It all seemed just a little too primal but for one thing, a bottle of delicious-smelling oil that has been perking me up in more feral moments: Sister & Co’s Raw Coconut Drink For Hair (£27). It smells lovely and zingy, with its mix of coconut, argan and macadamia oil, which all absorbed gorgeously into my frazzled curls, offering much relief.